The race to avoid financial catastrophe is approaching the finish line

There was no announcement but word still made its way to European bankers as summer turned to autumn: For them, Brexit day was the end of 2018, not March 29, 2019, when the U.K. splits from the European Union.

That’s because executives in London needed three months notice for derivatives deals that would be closed or moved. And there was still no plan to avoid what central bankers and regulators feared was a potential Lehman-like meltdown in financial markets if trillions of dollars of transactions were suddenly put in legal limbo with EU firms locked out of London.

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